新西兰英语 293 Ministers’ credit cards

　　Cabinet Ministers – like the Minister for Foreign Affairs, or the Minister for Trade or the Minister for the Environment – have to travel overseas as part of their job. They have a credit card to pay for expenses such as hotels, taxis and food. They are not allowed to pay for personal things using this credit card.
However, we learnt on Thursday that many Ministers used their credit cards for things like flowers for a partner’s birthday, a massage¹, expensive champagne², a large amount of alcohol or for watching movies in the hotel. Sometimes Ministers paid back the money for personal spending immediately but sometimes they waited until an official told them to pay it back
Seven large boxes, with about 700 credit card statements in them, were given to the Parliamentary reporters on Thursday. The papers showed what Ministers for the last few years had spent money on, using the official credit cards. Many of these people were Labour Party Ministers before the 2008 elections. Reporters were very happy to tell us about some the wrong things that were paid with taxpayer³ money.
It was very embarrassing for many Ministers and ex-Ministers. Sometimes, it was unfair to attack them. A hotel bill lists all expenses including movies, mini-bar, spa, hair dressing⁴ and anything else. If, for example, the Minister has a guest to take out to the car, a member of his or her staff pays the total hotel bill with the official credit card.
In the future Ministers will be very careful about how they use the official credit card because they know that reporters can check.
Questions
1. If a Minister uses any of these items from the mini-bar, is it a personal item or should the tax-payer pay for it: chocolate, beer, champagne, a bottle of water?
2. If a Minister has travelled for many hours across different time zones and cannot get to sleep at night, should the tax payer pay for a movie? What about a massage to relax or a hair-do to look good for a meeting?
3. Many business people have expense accounts, for travelling and for entertaining clients. Can they expect the company to pay for personal alcohol use? Is it easy to separate personal use from business use when entertaining clients?
4. What are the advantages of having credit card spending by Ministers open to inspection⁵ by reporters?

1 massage   

n.按摩，揉；vt.按摩，揉，美化，奉承，篡改数据

参考例句：

• He is really quite skilled in doing massage.他的按摩技术确实不错。
• Massage helps relieve the tension in one's muscles.按摩可使僵硬的肌肉松弛。

2 champagne   

n.香槟酒；微黄色

参考例句：

• There were two glasses of champagne on the tray.托盘里有两杯香槟酒。
• They sat there swilling champagne.他们坐在那里大喝香槟酒。

3 taxpayer   

n.纳税人

参考例句：

• The new scheme will run off with a lot of the taxpayer's money.这项新计划将用去纳税人许多钱。
• The taxpayer are unfavourably disposed towards the recent tax increase.纳税者对最近的增加税收十分反感。

4 dressing   

n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料

参考例句：

• Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
• The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。

5 inspection   

n.检查，审查，检阅

参考例句：

• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。
• The soldiers lined up for their daily inspection by their officers.士兵们列队接受军官的日常检阅。